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Swept Away: Falling for the Man with 600 Vacuums

We love a good love story here at StoryCorps. But this one? It sucks … just not in the way you might think.

Tom Gasko has been a vacuum repairman for over 35 years. He also collects vacuums — hundreds and hundreds of them — and proudly displays them in his very own vacuum cleaner museum in a Rolla, Missouri strip mall.

He came to StoryCorps to share his love for the machines with his husband, Donnie Pedrola.

Top Photo: Donnie Pedrola and Tom Gasko at their StoryCorps interview in Rolla, Missouri on June 26, 2019. By Dupe Oyebolu for StoryCorps.

Bottom Photo: In 2001, Tom got a tattoo of the logo of his favorite vacuum cleaner, The Airway from 1935. This is the same machine he hopes to spend eternity in. Courtesy Tom Gasko.

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Transcript

Donnie Pedrola (DP): Do you remember first becoming captivated by vacuum cleaners?

Tom Gasko (TG): My very first memory of the vacuum would have been my mother’s. I would drag that thing out and so many times I had nothing left to clean.

I learned to read from my mother’s vacuum cleaner instruction book, that was the book I wanted her to read to me.

And I was never shy about it. I would actually go up to people and I would say if you ever have a problem with your vacuum cleaner, I can help you with it.

Well, a lady down the street had a clog in the hose of her Electrolux. I remember she called my mother and my mother told me to go down and see if I could help her with it.

So I put the hose on the exhaust end of this machine and out pops a huge pair of panties! I held them up and she said “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe those were in there.” And I remember saying to her: “I can’t believe those were in there either!”

The night you came over for our very first date, I think we probably talked for four or five hours about the different designs of vacuums.

I would eventually start showing you the old ones that were in the garage. That’s when you thought I was crazy.

DP: Definitely. I had never heard of anybody collecting vacuums before. And a collection, to me, is 50-60, not 600-700.

TG: Has my collecting vacuums ever been a problem in our relationship?

DP: No, they’ve never been a problem. Sometimes the garage gets a little excess and it drives me nuts…

TG: But they’re special machines, they’re —

DP: No, they’ve never been a problem.

TG: Okay.

DP: Most people aren’t that passionate about something.

My life is totally different now. I see things differently, I view people differently. You get so excited about the simplest things.

TG: And you get swept up into it.

And the day that I pass, you know after you cremate me, I want you to take my favorite vacuum — the Airway — and I want you to vacuum my ashes up into it.